This is on old system with intel graphic card, so .... (But, Monstrumo work here)So, I didn't started it (will try at home on Radeon9800Pro), but noticed installation . What did you use to pack installation like that and to make an EXE?

thx for info on installer. And about multitexturing - if you expect from graphic card to have more that 4 multitexture units, that it is probably it... Anyway, I will try it at home tonight. It shure look like worth trying! I noticed that you have jre provided - its rather small, did you excluded some parts?

After deleting the config.ser file I get a crash with the same error message: "Fatal exception occured. Program will exit"

One note though, before I deleted the file launching cleared the screen (black screen, change of resolution) before crashing. Now it just launches the error without trying to clear the screen (unless it's faster than I can percieve).

When you get a moment, if you release a Linux install Ill test it out for you.

If creatign the instalelr is a problem, if you just release a JAR I can try it. If necessary I can even go fetch myself the linux versions of anything like JOGL or LWJGL you might depend on. Just tell me what the dependancies are

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Great Jeff! I'll put together a jar file and as much linux binaries as I can find. I might not be able to get to it till the weekend though - if only my day job and real life could be paused till I get this done

Great Jeff! I'll put together a jar file and as much linux binaries as I can find. I might not be able to get to it till the weekend though - if only my day job and real life could be paused till I get this done

No problem i might not get to trying it til this weekend anyway

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Great Jeff! I'll put together a jar file and as much linux binaries as I can find. I might not be able to get to it till the weekend though - if only my day job and real life could be paused till I get this done

No problem i might not get to trying it til this weekend anyway

I have been thinking - rather then make a distro for Linux at this point, I am going to make a WebStart version that hopefully will run on Windows, Linux and Mac.

This was a great game, I only wish it had more levels . The only problem I had was that the power-up with the laser sight was not always on. It's tough to tell exactly how far away the balls are at the beginning and I don't feel it has a lot to do with strategy at that point.

This was a great game, I only wish it had more levels . The only problem I had was that the power-up with the laser sight was not always on. It's tough to tell exactly how far away the balls are at the beginning and I don't feel it has a lot to do with strategy at that point.

Thanks - I am planning for at least 18 more levels - The sight should be accurate, it's using planar math to determine if the ball is on one side of the other, but it can be deceptive when the balls are moving. I am thinking of putting some kind of a fudge factor in there to make it a bit easier though - I don't know.

It's hard for me to judge the difficulty for some things, or their feel - I have played the game so many times that I never miss no matter how fast the balls are or how fast their moving

I think I got the binaries right for Linux sound (fingers crossed), but I am missing one for Mac - hoping someone can email me a copy of the fmod binary for OS X - email it to vorax ..at..voraxgames dot com if you have one and I'll update the webstart

I have noticed there are sound stuttering issues on Java 1.5 that don't happen in 1.4.2 (which I use in the Windows Install version) when the game is loading - seems Java 1.5 doesn't like to share the CPU as well as 1.4 - FMOD seems to be fighting back a bit during heavy audio play and slows Java a bit - It could just be my sound card which is utter crap. I'll be adding an option to turn down sound quality, at the moment it's set at 44Khz stero with 3D sound - it's a bit overkill for a casual game, but it sounds nice

I think I got the binaries right for Linux sound (fingers crossed), but I am missing one for Mac - hoping someone can email me a copy of the fmod binary for OS X - email it to vorax ..at..voraxgames dot com if you have one and I'll update the webstart

I am sorry that I haven't been able to get back to you on my woes with this game for a little while. I had to drive my son to the hospital and stay with him there, and that is kind of important to me. Anyway, I am happy to report that the problems are now gone.

I had to completely uninstall the 81.95 drivers, reinstall them (which had its own particular nasty surprises waiting for me) and behold (I will even go so far as to say "Lo!") the game works. Flawless!

Finally I can come with some input

My first impression is that I like the concept. I've never been fond of Zuma myself, but my wife loves it and spends countless hours in that particular, circular piece of maya-heaven She's still in the hospital with our son, but I'll get her to test it to get the impressions of a pro on your efforts later. I particularly like how you've translated the game to go over several levels (elevation) and that you've managed to keep the obscuring of the player's "backlog" by adding new stones even if it is 3d. However, I wonder, why are you only allowing the player to shoot at the stones from one angle? If you've gone to the trouble of doing it in 3d, why do you keep the game essentially 2d? I realise true 3d (attack from above and below as well) might be silly (or would it? New game proposal in the making there, I guess), but I'd like to be able to shoot from the west, east and north as well as south. Is this silly of me?

I know the music is considered a pluss, and I know I can turn it off, but I still think it's a bit bothersome. I like music in games, and try to keep it on to get into the atmosphere of it, but I think the one in this game would be better suited to a sci-fi game. But, this is just my opinion.

It can be hard to discern where the stone I shoot is going to go, and sometimes it feels (I'm not saying it is, just that it feels) haphazard. It seems to me the stone can go either way quite easily. Would it be possible to implement a slight cue to the player about where the stone will go? I am not talking aim-line here, but perhaps slightly enlarging the two stones the current shot will wedge in-between (so slight you'd hardly notice it if you didn't know, but enough to let the subconcious see the connection). A balancing issue, I know, and perhaps my being a poor player makes me want help I really shouldn't have. You decide.

I'd like to see the doors to the pyramid open up when the stones are approaching it, so as to let them in. That'd be nice

How about a few strategically placed jumps or bridges, that'd let the players jump over one line to the next one (making the front row unreachable just there) for added fun?

Do you really need load-screens for the menu? Gamers are prepared for load-screens when starting a game, but to go through a load-screen to get back to the menu from which you want to quit is a bit much. If it is at all possible you should remove it, or you should allow a direct-quit from the game. Players will rarely want to use half a minute or more to quit.

All in all though I think it's a great game! I am very much impressed with it! It plays great, and it's very smooth on my setup now that my driver is sorted.

I had to completely uninstall the 81.95 drivers, reinstall them (which had its own particular nasty surprises waiting for me) and behold (I will even go so far as to say "Lo!") the game works. Flawless!

Glad you got it working

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Finally I can come with some input

My first impression is that I like the concept. I've never been fond of Zuma myself, but my wife loves it and spends countless hours in that particular, circular piece of maya-heaven She's still in the hospital with our son, but I'll get her to test it to get the impressions of a pro on your efforts later. I particularly like how you've translated the game to go over several levels (elevation) and that you've managed to keep the obscuring of the player's "backlog" by adding new stones even if it is 3d. However, I wonder, why are you only allowing the player to shoot at the stones from one angle? If you've gone to the trouble of doing it in 3d, why do you keep the game essentially 2d? I realise true 3d (attack from above and below as well) might be silly (or would it? New game proposal in the making there, I guess), but I'd like to be able to shoot from the west, east and north as well as south. Is this silly of me?

Firing from different angles is something that I wanted to do and I experimented with it, but because of the 3D nature of it, I had to rotate the camera otherwise it was to hard to predict where the ball would go. However, rotating the camera continuously like that seemed to take away from it - it just didn't feel right because you had to turn fast - it started to feel more like an FPS game, which is a different audience then this is intended for, so I scrapped it.

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I know the music is considered a pluss, and I know I can turn it off, but I still think it's a bit bothersome. I like music in games, and try to keep it on to get into the atmosphere of it, but I think the one in this game would be better suited to a sci-fi game. But, this is just my opinion.

I like the music, but I understand what you mean - I'll probably be making one more track, maybe that one will be more to your liking

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It can be hard to discern where the stone I shoot is going to go, and sometimes it feels (I'm not saying it is, just that it feels) haphazard. It seems to me the stone can go either way quite easily. Would it be possible to implement a slight cue to the player about where the stone will go? I am not talking aim-line here, but perhaps slightly enlarging the two stones the current shot will wedge in-between (so slight you'd hardly notice it if you didn't know, but enough to let the subconcious see the connection). A balancing issue, I know, and perhaps my being a poor player makes me want help I really shouldn't have. You decide.

When doing the final game tweaking I will be revisiting the algorithms used for that- Basically it involves collision detection to determine if the ball will connect, then from there I take the vector the ball is travelling on and use it to develop a plane, then I test to see which side of the plane the ball will fall on - in front or in back. This basically determines if the ball will be behind or in front of the ball and collision determines the point they will connect on. It is very accurate, BUT since the balls are not on perfect angles and they are moving, it can be deceptive - if the view were top down, you would see it's perfect, but from the 3D angle it's sometimes deceptive. I will be looking for ways to compensate for that.

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I'd like to see the doors to the pyramid open up when the stones are approaching it, so as to let them in. That'd be nice

Depending on how bannas I go with the final polishing once the game is in beta - you might - but I will probably be loosing patience by then, so don't count on it

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How about a few strategically placed jumps or bridges, that'd let the players jump over one line to the next one (making the front row unreachable just there) for added fun?

There will indeed be stuff like this in other levels.

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Do you really need load-screens for the menu? Gamers are prepared for load-screens when starting a game, but to go through a load-screen to get back to the menu from which you want to quit is a bit much. If it is at all possible you should remove it, or you should allow a direct-quit from the game. Players will rarely want to use half a minute or more to quit.

I will be adding a quit game option from the pause menu. I can make the return to the main menu much faster (it actually was much faster in previous versions) - the problem is memory. Currently it's throwing away the main menu for the GC to take care of and reloading it upon your return. If the final memory profile of the game permits, I'll go back to having it hang onto that scene for a quick return.

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All in all though I think it's a great game! I am very much impressed with it! It plays great, and it's very smooth on my setup now that my driver is sorted.

Thanks - it's got about another 4-5 months work to go. Feedback like this keeps me going.

When I start the Webstart it asks, if it can create a directory '/kumari' to write settings to.

1. I don't want it to write settings in a directory directly located at the root of my filesystem (on Windows this might be ok, though)2. It also hasn't got write acess there (only root can add directorys to / )

Why don't you create a directory in the home dir? That would be much cleaner.

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